


To Find One's True Family

by Chaos_Valkyrie



Series: Agent O [1]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abandonment, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaos_Valkyrie/pseuds/Chaos_Valkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heinz Doofenshmirtz had only felt loved, truly loved, once in all of his very short life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Find One's True Family

**Author's Note:**

> I was trawling tumblr and came across a few posts about AgentOcelot!Heinz and EvilScientist!Perry and it consumed me. So, here is part one of this new series.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz had only felt loved, truly loved, once in all of his very short life.

At the age of seven, he had been disowned by his so-called birth parents (can they be called birth parents if neither one actually showed up for his birth?). With no friends, and no family willing to take in a dummkopf such as himself, he had retreated to the forests outside of Gimmelschtump in a misguided attempt to find food and / or shelter.

After three days of wandering alone, he huddled at dusk under yet another tree, deep in the forest, hungry, tired, and scared. He drifted off to sleep wondering how much longer before it was all over…

…and awoke warm, for the first time in days – years, honestly – to a strange rumbling noise.

Heinz opened his eyes, gasped, and pushed himself up against the tree behind him. He was surrounded by cats, big cats. The larger two looked about the same size he was… and the ‘babies’ were the size of adult house cats! They were covered in spots and strange striped markings, the likes of which he had never seen on any of the stray cats in Drusselstein.

At his sudden movement, the cats started to blink awake. The biggest yawned widely, showing a wickedly sharp set of fangs. Heinz whimpered, and curled himself smaller against the tree. The smaller of the two adults tilted its head, blinking as it looked straight at him.

“Please don’t eat me,” Heinz whimpered, and the cat rose to its feet, padding closer. He closed his eyes, determined not to face his impending death…

…and felt something warm and wet and ticklish slide up his cheek.

Heinz’s brow furrowed, and he peeked his eyes open, to watch the cat lick up his cheek again, before pulling back to look at him.

“Mrwr,” the cat chirped at him, tilting its – her? – head at him.

“Um… pleasedon’teatme…” he whimpered again.

The cat tilted her head the other way, and then rubbed her forehead against his, making that same rumbling sound as before.

“Mrowr,” she told him decisively, and it wasn’t until much much later that he realized that that ‘mrowr’ meant ‘don’t fear, you’re mine’.

*****

The next year was basically a lot of trial and error.

The ‘babies’, though chronologically years younger than Heinz, were roughly his same age in cat-years.

Which meant that Mutti and Vati Ocelot treated him as one of their cubs.

The larger cub, Odette, as he called her, was an expert at tracking down and pouncing upon prey. She mastered that trick long before Heinz and Otto, the younger male cub, did. 

And not for any lack of trying. Otto and Heinz spent hours hunting each other, under their feline father’s amused tutelage, hunting and pouncing and wrestling in the woods.

Mutti and Odette usually rolled their eyes at the males’ antics, grinned their feline grins at each other, and carried on bringing in that night’s meal.

*****

The first time Heinz ate raw meat, he almost vomited it all back up.

Mutti sat with him, all that night, worriedly rubbing against him and cuddling him.

The only reason it didn’t come back up, was because of that concern, that worry, for his well-being.

Some part of his seven-year-old brain would be damned if he failed the first person to ever give a fuck about him.

*****

It got easier. Over time. 

He learned how to hunt, take down prey. Eat said prey raw.

Mark territory – through he could never quite stop the blush that came to his face when he did so.

Learn scents – his family’s in particular – even with his inadequate human nose.

And mostly, understand what each chirp, purr, and mew meant from each of his new family members – the only family to ever care to learn all of his ways, and let him learn their ways in return.

Mutti – Mother – knew what every fluctuation of his scent meant – from illness to happiness.

Vati – Father – taught him every nuance of his musculature – how to hunt, and pounce, and wait, and everything in between.

Odette – his ‘Elder’ Sister – helped wash him, and guide him, and finally deemed him a worthy hunter beside her, when they made their first kill together in the deep woods.

Otto – his ‘Little’ brother – learned with him, and looked up to him, even as he was looked up to by Heinz, and never treated him as anything inferior or superior.

This was the family he had always longed for, if maybe not in the shape he ever expected.

*****

A year passed.

His clothes were mostly rags by now, his verbal skills mostly non-existent, yet for the family that mattered, it was more than enough.

Not so much for the humans that found him.

He was first sighted by a group of hunters in the deep woods. They called for him, yelled at him, and he fled away on the trails of his family.

That night, they all curled around him, guarding him from this foreign intrusion.

*****

A few weeks later, another group sighted him. They didn’t call out to him, didn’t approach him, but marked his movements nonetheless.

He recognized the motions. Thanks to Vati. They were hunting him.

*****

A few more weeks, and he realized he had a choice.

The humans slowly encroached on their territory. They ventured a little closer each time, broached their borders a little more each time. Looking for him.

The day he found the traps, he knew he had to make that choice.

Let his real family get captured, get killed, or… let them catch him.

His last day at home, he curled up to Mutti in a way he hadn’t since those first few weeks – desperate, clinging, desolate.

His family pulled around him, instinct knowing what would come next.

*****

The next morning, he let the hunters take him.

*****

Mid-afternoon found him in Gimmelschtump, blanket around his shoulders, his ‘birth’ parents pretending to fuss and fawn over him.

They ‘wept’ over his return, but even after a year’s time, he recognized the hardness in their eyes.

That night, and for many nights after, he went to sleep hungry and cold in his human bedroom, longing for the simpler life he’d known before.

Heinz cried himself to sleep that night. And for many nights after.

*****

It took time, and experimentation, but he finally figured it out.

He also had to cannibalize the vacuum cleaner, the radio, and the motor vehicle all in one night, risking his ‘birth’ parents’ wrath should he fail, to create IT. 

IT being his very own first invention, the Ocelot-inator.

He had a true family, and it wasn’t the one he lived with now.

So he powered up the gun made of random parts and crazy scientific know-how, aimed it at himself, and hoped with all of his being.

And a few minutes – maybe hours – later, he awoke, and his eyes settled on a strange yet familiar set of furry paws attached to him.

Even as he fled from the front yard, shedding his gnome uniform and grabbing his –inator in passing, he wondered if it was normal for ocelots to cry. He was.

*****

It wasn’t fully instinct – not quite yet – but the scent trails in the forest were familiar.

He followed the markers. Scent trails, narrow forest paths, broken twigs, until he found their lair.

He sat outside all afternoon, shifting paws, hesitant to enter. What if his scent had changed with the Ocelot–inator? What if they didn’t recognize him. Want him…?

Dusk came, and Mutti came to entrance of the den. She blinked, scenting the air, and tilted her head at him, this strange ocelot cub before her, even as the others came to the entrance and stared at him.

He leaned down, submitting himself, opening his neck to their judgment.

Mutti wriggled, and leapt toward him…

…he scrunched his eyes, in fear and submission…

…and she licked a stripe up his face, before rubbing his forehead with her own, her ecstatic purring causing her whole body to vibrate as she continued to frantically scent-mark him.

The others closed in, Vati and Odette and Otto, purring at the top of their lungs and rubbing themselves all over his newly furry body.

He purred, for the first time ever. This was the happiest day of Heinz’s life.

**Author's Note:**

> So ends Part One of my slow-build Perryshmirtz AU. I'll keep posting this on Wednesdays and Sundays as I have pieces ready. And if I don't have an Agent O story, you'll get another one of my Perryshmirtz tropey headcanons. See you Wednesday with Part Two!


End file.
